News in Brief Physics

A weird type of zirconium soaks up neutrons like a sponge

Scientists don’t yet know why zirconium-88 has such an affinity for the subatomic particles

zirconium

NEUTRON HUNGRY  A version of the element zirconium absorbs neutrons with a fervor unrivaled by almost any other type of known atom.

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By Emily Conover

- More than 2 years ago

When radiochemist Jennifer Shusterman and her colleagues got the first results of their experiment, no one expected what they saw: Atoms of a weird version of the element zirconium had enthusiastically absorbed neutrons.